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From the exhibition

Charles Wood, 1st Viscount Halifax — 'Statesmen No. 58'

Carlo Pellegrini · Vanity Fair, 6 August 1870

Charles Wood, 1st Viscount Halifax — 'Statesmen No. 58'
Carlo Pellegrini ('Ape') reduces Charles Wood, 1st Viscount Halifax — former Chancellor of the Exchequer and Secretary of State for India — to an elongated, stooped silhouette in black frock coat and polka-dot bow tie, squinting through a pince-nez at a slip of paper. The caricature exaggerates his famously large nose and sparse white hair into near-architectural proportion, a standard Pellegrini technique for elderly Whig grandees. The caption, *'He fell off his horse into the Peerage'*, is the plate's whole political argument: Wood's viscountcy (1866) is mocked as accidental elevation rather than earned distinction — a jab at aristocratic preferment over merit. The crown vignette top-right underlines the peerage joke. No ethnic caricature is present; the satire is purely class-political.

Carlo Pellegrini Public domain